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Obituaries
We wish all
our dear ex-libris friends long life
and good health! But as we all know,
we cannot go on collecting
forever...
Please send
information as to ex-libris
collectors and artists who have
passed away.
07.01.08
It was a great sadness to learn, a
few days ago, that
Germaine
Meyer-Noirel, the 'Grande Dame' of
ex-librists, passed away
on Sunday January 6, after a short
illness. She was born in Nancy in
1919 and spent most of her life in
her native Lorraine, living in a
wonderful house in the village of
Tomblaine, with her husband
Jean-Charles Meyer (†2000), a highly
cultured chemist who shared many of
her interests. The house was full of
books, bookplates, engravings, and a
number of other collections which
were started by her father. But her
home from home was the Municipal
Library of Nancy, next to the
celebrated Stanislas Square, where
she had convinced the director, many
years ago, to give a small office to
AFCEL to house its collection and
archives. It was a box-lined mouse's
nest kept in pristine order, with
albums, reserves of publications and
many reference books, Germaine's
desk and barely room for a chair for
visitors.
Germaine Meyer-Noirel was a
librarian by training, and as such
had a real interest in ex-libris as
library owners' marks over the
centuries – though she did not
disdain contemporary ex-libris, even
having quite a number to her own
name commissioned from various
artists as well as received as
gifts, which she exchanged, and
promptly added her acquisitions to
the AFCEL collection, having no real
wish to collect for herself. She was
a scholar of ex-libris, a researcher
and certainly the foremost expert on
French bookplates for most of her
life. For half a century, she worked
as a volunteer for the Nancy Library
and for AFCEL, publishing an array
of important articles on the history
of ex-libris and in 1989 a book,
L'ex-libris: histoire, art,
techniques, published by Picard,
Paris, which remains still today the
best reference work on French
bookplates. She created at her
office in the Nancy Library a
National Centre for the
Documentation of Ex-libris for AFCEL
where she weaved an extraordinary
web of scholars and collectors of
bookplates interacting with them to
identify, classify and document
items which were mysterious. This
quickly led her to embark on her
life-work, writing an encyclopaedic
repertory of French ex-libris which
now contains over 30'000 items
collected into close to twenty
volumes. These last few years she
worked assiduously on her project
mostly from her home, using an
excellent database which had been
specially developed for her. Not
wanting things to get out of hand,
she asked her computer technician to
install an automatic save and backup
every day at 5 pm... following which
the computer switched off
automatically, and she stopped
working! Shortly before
Christmas, she passed the letter 'z'
cards for checking, so her task was
almost finished – AFCEL, with the
help of Germaine's daughter, Cécile
Malinverno, will see to it that the
last volume of the repertory is
published soon.
Germaine Meyer-Noirel had a key role
in AFCEL, recreated in 1945. She was
a member since its inception and its
president from 1983 to 2000, and
then its honorary president until
her death. She was, with the help of
her husband, a key figure in the
founding of FISAE (see
http://www.fisae.org/historystatutes.html).
All collectors and researchers who
were in touch with her will remember
how helpful and generous she was
with her time and her immense
reservoir of knowledge. She was a
patient and persistent researcher,
and at the same time witty and
amusing, with a sharp mind and
astounding memory.
Beyond her major contribution to the
history of ex-libris, Germaine
Meyer-Noirel leaves behind her five
children, 15 grand-children and 19
great-grand-children. On behalf of
FISAE and the entire ex-libris
community, we convey to them our
heartfelt condolences.
4.05.07
Less than a week
after posting the last news I have
the very sad task of bringing to you
more bad news. Our good friend
Vladimir
Loburev, founder and curator of the
Ex-libris Museum in Moscow,
died yesterday, May 3rd. All of you
who have been to international
bookplate meetings, or being in
Moscow have found their way to the
Ex-libris Museum on
Pushechnaya, will
have met him and will mourn him.
This is another terrible loss for
the Russian Ex-libris Association
and we send them our most heartfelt
condolences.
A biographical
note is being drafted and will be
posted here soon.
30.04.07
Another leading
figure of the Russian bookplate
world has left us. Born on April 5,
1930, the great
wood
engraver and artist Anatolii
Kalashnikov died in
Moscow on 21 April. Click here to
read a text about him by FISAE
Executive Secretaty W. E. Butler.
17.04.07
There seems to be
a succession of bad news... I was
just informed that
Veniamin
Khudolei, Vice-Chairman of the
Russian Ex-libris Association and
editor of its journal,
died on Saturday, April 14, 2007.
Many of us remember Veniamin's
brilliant organisation of the FISAE
Congress in St. Petersburg in 1998 -
and all those who knew him will miss
his lively intelligence, his sense
of humour and his charm.
Click
here
to read a text on Veniamin Khudolei
by W. E. Butler, FISAE Executive
Secretary, and
here
to read a tribute to him by a group
of major Russian artists who were
his friends.
26.02.07
Today, not only
the Bookplate Society but the entire
ex-libris community is in mourning.
Brian North
Lee, writer, collector and historian
of bookplates (*1936)
died of cancer in London on 24
February 2007.
Founder of the
Bookplate Society in 1972 and its
president for a great part of its
existence, Brian was the most
prolific author on ex-libris in the
history of British bookplate
collecting, with many of his works
(for example
Early Printed Book Labels
[P.L.A. and Bookplate Society,
1976],
British Bookplates
[David and Charles, 1979], etc.)
being standard reference books not
only for British collectors but used
worldwide. He stands without doubt
alone of his generation as the
epitome of the serious collector and
erudite researcher on bookplates.
Although his interests centred on
British ex-libris and Royal
bookplates, his interests were wide
and he was knowledgeable on subjects
as far apart as mediaeval German
ex-libris or contemporary Scottish
ones (a book on Scottish bookplates
which he wrote with Sir Ilay
Campbell is still under press). In
1995, he went to Belgrade as a
member of the jury of the 'World of
Ex-libris' competition, and his
comments and observations showed
that he also had a good eye for
contemporary bookplates - as long as
they were real ex-libris, and not
small free graphics in disguise.
By training, after
an attempt at religious life, Brian
became an English teacher and taught
many years at a school for
educationally difficult children. He
delighted in language and literature
and each letter one received from
him was a small masterpiece. It was
a tragedy for him that in the 1980s
the school was closed and he was
made redundant, with a very modest
pension - but for bookplate
enthusiasts, it was a gift, as Brian
from then on spent nearly all his
time and energy on ex-libris. He
also, by the way, built up a
breath-taking collection of
mediaeval pilgrims' badges, with
many pieces coveted by the British
Museum.
Brian's house at
32 Barrowgate Road, Chiswick, was
for over a quarter of a century the
place where bookplate enthusiasts
from all parts of the world went for
counsel and information - and to
whiff an atmosphere of the England
of our childhood, with mahogany and
oak furniture, fine china and a
grandfather clock which never worked
- normal, as time stood still.
Privileged visitors met the tortoise
in the garden, and also Prince
Stanley Hanuman, a very Royal plush
monkey which went back to Brian's
childhood. Talk was nearly always
about bookplates - projects of
articles and books, queries as to
style, owners, artists, motifs - and
Brian always seemed to have that
snippet of information one had been
looking for in vain. His memory was
exceptionally good, and he was
sometimes disgruntled when people,
over a few years, asked him the same
question twice. His deep knowledge
of ex-libris was not acquired
perchance: he had read all the
literature on the subject of the
1860-1920 period, including all the
volumes of the Ex-libris Journal,
many times. I remember asking him a
question about an early armorial
once, and he pulled out one of the
ELJ volumes, flipped the pages and
came to a lengthy article on the
subject of my query, written in
1906... he pushed the book in front
of me , and said "It's all there!" -
and I felt sheepish.
Of all Brian's
publications, the one which best
reveals his enquiring spirit and
gently caustic wit is Some
recollections of a bookplate
collector, which was privately
published in the late 'eighties. I
have just taken it from my
bookshelf, and will start re-reading
it when I get home tonight. Perhaps
it will be a way to cheat his
departure for a few days. All his
friends, and especially the West
Indian ones, who were the closest to
him, sorely miss him. Thank you
Brian, for all you have given us.
Persons who
want more information as to Brian
North Lee can read an article by
John Blatchly
here,
and can find information as to his
funeral on
www.bookplatesociety.org
22.12.06

I received this
morning the very sad news that our
dear friend
Costante Costantini,
the great Florentine engraver,
painter and creator of ex-libris,
died on December 1rst. I feel this
loss personally and very directly,
as earlier this year I went three
times to Florence to see him and to
prepare the exhibition of his
bookplates which were shown in 'Work
in Dialogue' at the FISAE Congress
last August.
He telephoned me
in September to express his joy at
having seen the catalogue and his
pride in being associated with Simon
Brett, Evgenji Bortnikov and
Vladimir Zuev in the publication.
With his loss, it
is one of the last great European
woodcutters who disappears. His
bookplates and his rich legacy of
artworks remain, with their
wonderful blacks and whites in
perfect balance. Behind the images
of persons of all walks of life, the
humanity and sense of fun of
Costantini is always apparent, with
rare crispness and gentility. No one
was a more constant friend - as his
name reminds us.
For those who did
not read the short biographical note
in 'Work in Dialogue', it can be
accessed
here.
The woodcut shown above is one of
the many small prints he used to
send as PFs and New Year cards.
Below his self-portrait is the word
'auguri', which means best wishes.
Best wishes to you, Costante
Costantini, and may the earth be
light on your grave.
Where can I
find something which was posted and
has been removed?
Competition results, in memoriam
notices and all other material
except what refers to ephemeral events such as
meetings and exhibitions are posted
to the 'Archive' section of this
site. Consult it!
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